At-risk youths get a hand up

Sunday

Oct 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 6, 2013 at 10:40 AM

The single teenage mom from Marion could be the poster child for Ohio's welfare system. But she's not. Instead, 17-year-old Chantell Hill is a success story, her prospects for the future redirected by a tax-funded program to help at-risk youths earn high-school diplomas and get work experience.

Catherine Candisky, The Columbus Dispatch

The single teenage mom from Marion could be the poster child for Ohio's welfare system.

But she's not.

Instead, 17-year-old Chantell Hill is a success story, her prospects for the future redirected by a tax-funded program to help at-risk youths earn high-school diplomas and get work experience.

"I take care of her," Hill said, referring to her 9-month-old daughter. "I come to school every day. I go to work. I have all my Ohio graduation tests passed, I have 181/2 credits. I just have to get the last couple credits and graduate."

Hill, who also looks after her 15-year-old sister, gets a lot of help.

Her school, county welfare agency, local employers and job coaches all help support her efforts to support herself.

"You can see yourself in another reality," said Roxane Somerlot, director of the

Marion County Department of Job and Family Services.

"We talk a lot about generational poverty and how to break the cycle. Sometimes you think there is no way and there is no answer, and I just think this is the way. This is how you do it."

With $97 million in this year's state budget - up from $55 million last year - for training and employment support services for welfare recipients, counties are ramping up efforts to help the poor find and keep a job. In addition, the state is providing $30 million for incentive payments to local workforce boards to help recipients find employment.

"As the cash-assistance caseload has come down, there is money available, and we wanted it invested back into the program and, more importantly, into the people receiving cash assistance," said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

"It will pay for education and job training. Gas cards, bus tokens, emergency rent payments or utilities, all the things necessary to support employment and to help people move out of poverty."

The investment comes as Ohio's welfare rolls have plunged to 131,875, their lowest levels in decades - and a plunge of 100,000 since January 2011.

The drop started after the state in 2007 began slashing funding for support services, forcing counties to largely give up on helping recipients find work. Eventually, under pressure from federal regulators to meet work requirements - the goal of welfare reform - counties essentially started tossing people from the rolls to avoid millions in sanctions. Most who remain on welfare are children.

Joel Potts, director of the Ohio Job and Family Services' Directors Association, acknowledged that counties largely abandoned the goal but said they had little choice. "We were barebones," he said. Now, counties are left with "people with hard-core issues," and the additional funds are needed "to help this population."

In Marion, Somerlot plans to expand a work-development program for low-income students attending Rushmore Academy, an independently operated charter school sponsored by the local public school district and serving former dropouts and students like Hill who fall through the cracks.

"I have a learning disability, and school wasn't working for me. I couldn't do the work. I didn't understand it. I asked questions and got passed over, and that triggered my anger problems and I quit going," Hill said.

She started at Rushmore and was doing well when she was faced with another challenge: She became pregnant. But this time she didn't run.

"It was pretty rocky. I struggled with sleep, and spending time with her (daughter), making sure I'm at school and work every day, but Rushmore is really good," said Hill, who parlayed her job placement with the Boys and Girls Club into a permanent job.

Rushmore operates an extended-day, year-round schedule, offering students flexible schedules, work opportunities and support services. The school has 208 students, with 160 on a waiting list.

"These kids learn to be self-sufficient and independent," said Rushmore director Steve Vanderhoff. "It's teaching them how to balance work and school."

The county paid for 13 Rushmore students to go through the nine-week job program this year, about a third of the participants. All completed the program, and two-thirds got a permanent job afterward. With the additional funds, the county will finance 65 students in the coming year.

John Cook, 17, a former drug addict, came to Rushmore last year after his release from juvenile detention for drugs and theft.

"Once I got out, I slipped up a little, but I caught myself," Cook said. "I started going to church, came to school here and got in the job program."

He's finishing school while working with Kingdom Builders & Remodeling, a local construction company that employs former addicts.

"I remodel houses, build pole barns, I do everything," Cook said. "It was a challenge at first. I made it sound easy, but it wasn't."

Shawn Barr, co-owner of Kingdom and a former addict himself, said he tends to get back everything he puts into helping kids like Cook.

"I don't have to tell him what to do. He figures out things on his own," Barr said.

Another employer in the program, Don Harper, vice president of Sims Bros. Inc., a local recycling and property-maintenance company, said the students he's hired may need work on skills but tend to be eager to succeed.

"We had an individual come in very shy and introverted. She grew over the summer, and we were looking for a full-time job for her, but she's going to do volunteer work and looking for a way to go to college for social work," Harper said.